Elm

elm

pagan soul
whose ancient roots
fingered rich clay soil
and gripped
as tightly as a newborn
to a blanket.

I had to leave
to find again
your towering eloquence:
mighty roots astride the ditch
Ozymandias reborn
between sugar-beet and
green barley
whose nap shifted
with your merest sigh.

lichen-sleeved limbs
elbowed telegraph poles
kept at arm's length
rotor-blades
and rainbows drizzling
caustic over all:
a ride of the valkyries
and the smell of pesticide
in the morning.

I remember how
you held the
trembling sun
suspended
in a brief embrace
before winter dusk
descended;
how a hoarse exchange
shredded the stillness within
a knot of rooks
bickering
like old men in a cafe.

always looming
like a soft presence
arms outstretched
holding back the universe.

I lost touch
like a winter forest
turned inward
petrified till the first thaw.
when I returned
you were leaning into
the blackthorn hedge
waiting for a prop.

new leaves turned
arthritic joints snapped
glib as an x-ray tumour
an alien shadow formed.

then chainsaws tore
screaming
through withered limbs
to old frozen arteries
remembering
sun-soaked days and
the decadent joys
of photosynthesis.

weeks it took
to break down
your towering eccentricity
blades baffled
blunting their purpose.

rain too kept wood-lust at bay
so that for a spell
lower branches trimmed
you mocked a rakish bard
all ruff and hose:
arborial elegance
reaching for your next conceit
knave who stole my heart.

when you were gone
a monumental stump remained
clots of amber
interpolating your ringed text
through the scribe's
crystallized tears.
bindweed, nettle and scratchgrass
hastily buried the evidence
and stifled tubers
in stunted infancy.

too wide the space you left
and too deep to manage.
overnight perspectives shifted
balance of light
and shade all wrong:
sun dazzled
like a garish chandelier
exposing places
best in shadow.

at yuletide
sick with grief before the hearth
elm-thoughts hardening
cells of turning gold
I heard music
as flames caught sap
found my soul drawn
toward the space you left
peered into a moonless
night so black I could not
distinguish your absence.

that night I flew away
like sawdust on the breeze.